As always heres the link to the publication.
Fleshy Fungi Commonly Eaten By Southern Wildlife, Howard Miller and Lowell K. Halls
This is a fun one for me because it is a one of a kind publication, it's essentially a field guide to which fungi deer love to eat.
To frame this apropriately we have to look at what was going on in not only the wildlife habitat world at the time, but American society as a whole. This publication was released in 1969, a year later or less, in 1970 Magic Mushrooms became illegal. Undoubtedly the authors spent many years compliling observances and information prior to releasing the paper for peer review before publication, which was at that time a 1-2 year process in itself. Essentially their many years of hard work were ill timed and subsequently muted because mushrooms and fungi at the time were becoming villianized in our culture. Sadly here we are 50+ years later and their work is only just now beginning to be understood by the wildlife management community.
Unlike some other studies and papers this publication leaves absolutely no doubt about fungi as a feed resource and would be a handy addition to every southeastern GameKeepers library.
As a fun tidbit, the Southern Forest Experiment Station, was originally operated by the Forest Service/U. S. Depafiment of Agriculture, then it became the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research, College of Forestry, Stephen F. Austin State University and today it's known as the Dr. Deer Research Facility operated by Dr. James Kroll aka Dr. Deer. Unsurprisingly Dr. Kroll is an advocate of Fungi in the diet of whitetails especially with regards to nutritional phosphorus.
We sent him materials for a mushroom food plot last year in late autumn and are eagerly awaiting the results of placement on the site. However as of the time of this writing, we have yet to see results.
Matt